This proposal requests partial support for an international meeting on Myogenesis as part of the Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar series to be held at the Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco Resort Lucca (Barga), Italy June 20-26, 2015. The broad and long term goal of the conference and seminar is to increase our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of normal muscle development, growth and hypertrophy, regeneration, homeostasis and aging, and cancer and myopathies with an emphasis on mammalian models, but with comparisons to other vertebrate and invertebrate systems. The specific aims of these meetings are to convene, in an isolated setting, 1. a Conference with 46 speakers that represent critical areas of skeletal muscle research with a total of 200 participants for a five day conference as well as 2. a two day graduate and postdoctoral research Seminar immediately prior to the Conference. The Conference program will have a keynote lecture discussing innovative insights into mammalian muscle biology from the study of snakes. Nine sessions will address current issues in genomic and epigenetic regulation of muscle; muscle cell biology, myofiber specification, and metabolism; muscle stem cells; and molecular and cell-cell interactions during development, muscle repair, aging, and disease. In addition, four evening poster sessions will permit all participants to contribute to these topics. The Seminar will have four sessions of talks and two poster sessions by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and represents a unique opportunity for the upcoming generation of scientists to present their research on myogenesis, develop new ideas, and form collaborations. The significance of this application is that the Myogenesis Gordon Research Conference is a critical component of the yearly series of conferences that bring together cutting edge muscle researchers in the international community. The Research Seminar is an exciting meeting exclusively for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to foster the upcoming generation of scientists in the field of myogenesis. The health relatedness of this application is that the discussions generated within this interdisciplinary conference will define current outstanding questions in the field and will generate new experimental approaches in areas that affect human muscle development, health, and aging, muscle diseases, and regenerative mechanisms and therapies.